As the child made the perilous descent in
the practised clasp of the grandfatherly Clenk, he could look up and see
the jagged portal of the cave he had left, high above the river, though
not so high as the great, tall deciduous trees waving their lofty boughs
on the summit of the cliffs. Certain grim, silent, gaunt figures,
grotesquely contorted in the mist, the child's wide blue eyes traced out,
as the other moonshiners climbed too down the rugged face of the crag,
all burdened with bundles of varying size and unimaginable
contents--food, clothing, or such appliances of their craft as the
hurried revenue raiders had chanced to overlook. The little boy must have
contended with fear in this awesome environment, the child of gentlest
nurture, but he thought he was going to his mother, or perchance he could
not have submitted with such docility, so uncomplainingly. Only when they
had reached the rocky marge of the water and he had been uncoiled from
the rug and set upon his feet did he lift his voice in protest.
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